Stephanie smiled at Daniel’s sarcasm.

“Only because it is well deserved,” Ashley said. “Besides, one should have faith in one’s doctor.”

“It would be my guess that doctors Wingate and Saunders will be more interested in money than my resume,” Daniel said.

“It is my thought that they will be interested in your resume to gain stature and to help them make money,” Ashley commented. “But their venal nature and their lack of research training is not a concern of ours, other than to be aware of it and to take advantage of it. It is their facility and equipment we are interested in.”

“I hope you realize that doing this procedure under these circumstances is not going to be cheap by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Nor would I want it to be cheap,” Ashley responded. “I want the expensive, high-quality, first-class version. Rest assured, I have access to more than sufficient funds to cover any expenses that impinge upon my political career. But I will expect your personal services to be pro bono. We are, after all, exchanging favors.”

“Agreed,” Daniel said. “But prior to rendering any services, Dr. D’Agostino and I will require you to sign a special release that we will draw up. This release will spell out the exact way that this affair originated as well as all the attendant risks involved, including the fact that we have never done the procedure on a human being.”

“As long as I can be assured of the confidentiality of this release, I will have no qualms about signing it. I can understand you would want it for your protection. I am absolutely certain I would want the very same thing if I were in your position, so there should be no problem whatsoever, provided it does not include anything unreasonable or inappropriate.”

“I can assure you it will be reasonable,” Daniel said. “Next, I’d like to encourage you to use your resources as you suggested to find out about access to the Shroud of Turin so we can get a sample.”

“I have already instructed Ms. Manning to initiate the appropriate meetings with the various prelates with whom I have had a working relationship. I will assume it will happen in the next few days. How big a sample would be required?”

“It can be extremely small,” Daniel said. “Merely a few fibers would be adequate, but it would have to be fibers coming from a section of the shroud containing a bloodstain.”

Ashley laughed. “Even an ignorant, nonscientist like myself would assume as much. The fact that you need only a small sample should help immeasurably. As I mentioned last night, I know there were such samples taken and then called back by the church.”

“We’d need them as soon as possible,” Daniel added.

“I understand completely the need for expeditiousness,” Ashley responded. “Is there anything else you require of me?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said. “We will need you to have a punch biopsy of your skin tomorrow morning. If there is a chance we can produce the curative cells in a month, we’ll need to take your biopsy back with us tomorrow when we return to Boston. Your private physician can arrange having the biopsy with a dermatologist, who can have a courier bring it over to us at the hotel. It will serve as a source of fibroblasts that we will grow in tissue culture.”

“I will see to it first thing in the morning.”

“I believe that is all for now,” Daniel said. He looked at Stephanie, and she nodded in agreement.

“I have a vitally important request of my own,” Ashley said. “I think we should exchange special email addresses and use the Internet for all our communications, which should be generic and short. The next time we talk directly should be at the Wingate Clinic on New Providence Island. I am committed that this affair be a closely guarded secret, and the less direct contact we have, the better. Is that acceptable?”

“By all means,” Daniel agreed.

“As for expense money,” Ashley said, “I will advise you by email of a confidential account at an offshore bank in Nassau, set up by one of my political action committees, from which you will be able to withdraw funds. I will, of course, expect an accounting in the future. Is that acceptable?”

“As long as there’s enough money,” Daniel said. “One of the major expenses will be to obtain the necessary human egg cells.”

“I reiterate,” Ashley said, “there will be more than adequate funds available. Rest assured!”

A few minutes later, after a final long-winded farewell from Ashley, Daniel leaned forward and disconnected the speakerphone. He lifted the phone back onto the end table. Then he swung around to face Stephanie. “I had to laugh when he called the head of the Wingate Clinic a blowhard. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

“You were right about him putting a lot of thought into this affair. I was shocked when he said he’d made travel reservations a month ago. There’s no doubt in my mind he had the Wingate Clinic investigated.”

“Are you feeling better about being involved in curing him?”

“To a degree,” Stephanie admitted. “Especially since he says he’ll have no compunction signing a release that we write. At least I’ll have the feeling he’s considered the experimental nature of what we will be doing and the attendant risks. I wasn’t at all sure of that before.”

Daniel slid across the couch, put his arms around Stephanie, and hugged her against his body. He could feel her heart beating in her chest. Pushing himself back enough to look into her face, he stared into the dark depths of her eyes. “Now that we have seemingly gotten things under control in the political/business/research arena, how about starting out where we left off last night?”

Stephanie returned Daniel’s stare. “Is that a proposition?”

“Indeed, it is.”

“Is your autonomic nervous system going to cooperate?”

“A lot better than it did last night, I can assure you.”

Daniel got to his feet and helped Stephanie to hers.

“We forgot the do-not-disturb sign,” Stephanie said, as Daniel eagerly pulled her toward the bedroom.

“Let’s live dangerously,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

2:35 P.M., Friday, February 22, 2002

By the time Stephanie had awakened early that morning, she was caught up in the details of the Butler project. Her negative intuition about treating the senator’s Parkinson’s disease had not changed, but there was too much to do to obsess about such feelings. Even before she had showered, she used her laptop to fire off a series of emails to the senator about the handling of his biopsy.

First, she wanted the biopsy as soon as possible that morning. Second, she wanted to be absolutely certain it was a full-thickness skin, because she would need cells from deep in the dermis. And third, she wanted the sample merely to be placed in a flask of tissue culture fluid and not frozen or even iced. She was confident the tissue would be fine at room temperature until she got back to the laboratory in Cambridge, where she would deal with it appropriately. Her goal was to create a culture of the senator’s fibroblasts, the nuclei of which she would ultimately be using to create the cells to treat him. She had always had better luck with fresh rather than frozen cells when she was doing HTSR followed by nuclear transfer, or therapeutic cloning, as some people insisted on calling the process.

To Stephanie’s surprise and despite the early hour, the senator emailed her back almost immediately, indicating that not only was he an early riser but that he was as committed to the project as he had suggested the previous evening. In his message, he assured her he had already put in a call to his doctor and that when the doctor called back he would communicate her requests and insist they be followed.

Daniel was ebullient from the moment he’d thrown back the covers. He too was at his laptop, emailing before doing anything else. Dressed only in a hotel terry-cloth robe, he typed out a message to the West Coast venture capital group that had expressed interest in investing in CURE but had been reluctant to release any funds until there’d been a resolution of Senator Butler’s bill. Daniel wanted to let them know that the bill was destined to languish permanently in the subcommittee and was no longer a threat. Daniel would have liked to explain how he knew this bit of news, but he knew he couldn’t. Daniel had not expected a message back from the prospective investors for several hours, since it was only four in the morning on the West Coast when his message went out on the World Wide Web. Nonetheless, he was confident in their response.